this month's
Ink Pellet contains
A Final Haunt
After 33 extraordinary years, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will haunt the stage of the Fortune Theatre for the final time, as the production ends in the West End on Saturday 4th March 2023. PW Productions announce that after 33 extraordinary years in London’s West End, the theatrical sensation that is Susan Hill’s THE […]
Reaching for the Moon
Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […]
National Youth Theatre Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […]
Apprenticeships
An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […]
School Shows
Never underestimate the power of a school production – for every single person involved. When you meet former students, sometimes from decades back in my case, it’s usually taking part in Oliver! or A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they reminisce about with shining eyes. Most importantly it’s a terrific bonding exercise. We hear a lot […]
New Perspectives
With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. LLucian Freud would have been 100 this year, and that’s a good excuse to look back over his life and work, but especially his work, as the two have a rather nasty […]
Grandad Anansi – Half Moon Theatre
Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Like everything else in this show, the garden designed by Sorcha Corcoran, is beautiful with lots of colour, light and plants that Grandad knows by name and talks to. […]
Theatre Review – The King of Nothing – Little Angel Theatre
Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […]
Book Review – Activist
by Louisa Reid Published by Guppy Books Cassandra, narrator of this powerful verse novel, is a reluctant sixth former in a prestigious mixed school, formerly all boys, where toxic culture simmers. Driven by her own experience, and by nature a feisty “shouter” she campaigns forcibly for acknowledgement that some of the boys at school treat […]
Book Review – A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers: Reorienting Classroom Literacy Practice
by Maya Pindyck and Ruth Vinz, with Diana Liu and Ashlynn Wittchow The thrust of this detailed, well-researched, quite academic book about the poetry in classrooms is that we shouldn’t teach students to search for meaning so that “the poem becomes a specimen for examination under the microscope of interpretative practices”. Instead we should experience […]
Book Review
Ink Pellet’s book review section covers an eclectic selection of new fiction, teachers’ guides, audio books and classics.
Many of our reviews are written by teachers, so we have an expert eye on how texts will work in the classroom. We hope to create a useful archive of reviews so that you can use this as a reference.
If you would like to join our panel of reviewers, please join in or email the editor john@inkpellet.co.uk.
We hope the section inspires you to share new fiction with your pupils or to revisit old favorites yourself.
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Published by Methuen Drama Want more drama diversity? Four plays to consider. We now live in diverse, multicultural communities and need plays which reflect that to use in drama and English lessons. That is why Pearson Edexel, the UK’s largest examining body, has spent five years committedly looking for ways of expanding the list of […]
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by Beth Underdown Published by Penguin Random House This novel has been widely dubbed a homage to Daphne du Maurier. Yes, there are fires and houses and we’re in Cornwall. Beyond that I didn’t find too much similarity although it would be a good wider reading recommendation for A level students who are studying Rebecca. […]
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by Traci N. Todd Published by Scribble Nina Simone was born in North Carolina and showed musical promise from babyhood, encouraged by both parents although her preacher mother did not approve of secular music. This account – which is evocatively illustrated by Christian Robinson – traces her life through classical piano lessons and the Juilliard […]
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by Ross Montgomery Illustrated by Mark Beech Published by Barrington Stoke This neat, entertaining “chapter book” for Key Stage 2 is, effectively, a commentary on The Tempest. A class of children have been working on the play with a view to performing it at a festival in Italy. They’re full of both The Tempest and […]
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by Elif Shafak Published by Viking/Penguin We’re in Cyprus – or at least thinking back to how it has been there – from the point of view of a teenager in a London school in the late 2010s. Her parents had married across the Greek/Turkish divide which led to their arrival in England. Ada’s mother […]
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By Katty Kay, Claire Shipman & JillEllyn Riley Published by Harper Collins This is an original and rather good idea for an affirmative, inspirational book celebrating the achievements of young girls as a way of showing what can be done by “ordinary” people once they are fired up by determination and confidence. Its 30 very […]
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by Sophie McKenzie Published by Simon and Schuster Sophie McKenzie is very good at fast paced page turners. And although this is about one of the most implausible stories (think Enid Blyton, spliced with Peter James and seasoned with Line of Duty) I’ve ever read, that is unlikely to bother the 12+ readership at which […]
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by Jacqueline Wilson Published by Doubleday Childrens My third granddaughter, aged 10, recently mentioned The Runaway Girls, a new Wilson title she wanted to read, but her mum had said she had to wait for the paperback. So of course Granny bought it in hardback for GD3’s birthday. She also purchased a download and read […]
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By Emma Stonex Published by Pan Macmillan In 1900 three lighthouse keepers disappeared from a lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides. And that mystery is the inspiration for Emma Stonex’s oddly compelling and highly original novel set in 1972 and later. Three men, Arthur Black, principal keeper, William “Bill” Walker, assistant keeper, and the much younger […]
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by Kadiatu Kanneh-MasonPublished by Oneworld Publications When I interviewed Sheku Kanneh-Mason for Ink Pellet in 2016 he rather disingenuously told me that his parents weren’t musicians, His mother’s memoir makes the truth clear. She and her husband Stuart both played instruments to a reasonable standard and are competent amateurs. This was why they were so […]